Page 42 of The Taker

“Okay, let’s grab your book bag and lunch. Get going.”

Rocco has a smug look on his face all the way to the car.

After lunch,I sit on Rocco’s lap while he goes over some spreadsheets. It’s a lot of math, and not the kind I do. I’m all about teaspoons, table spoons, and grams, not profits and losses.

I thought being a mafioso meant Rocco was going to spend long nights out on secret criminal missions and torture poor souls in the living room… But it’s been mostly meetings, spreadsheets, blowing him at his desk, and cuddling afterward. Not that I’m complaining.

He may wear a gun whenever he leaves the penthouse, but I barely even notice it. He seems almost…normal. Like a businessman.

My phone rings, the number of Julia and Lucy’s academy popping up on the screen.

“Is this Mr. Costa?” an older female voice asks. “This is Principal Miriam Hurst.”

“Yes, is everything okay?”

Put it on speaker, Rocco mouths at me before scrolling through his phone. I nod, and her next words float around the room.

“Lucy is fine and accounted for. Julia never reported for class after her lunch. We called her to the office, and your guards searched the building, but she’s left campus.”

My mouth drops. “How can she leave? She doesn’t have a car…” My throat feels like it’s closing, and I can’t breathe. My anxiety grips me and I feel as if I’m spiraling.

Where is she?

What if she’s alone out there with this fucking psycho out to get us all?!

He could have her right now…

She can be dead right now…or worse.

I can’t see through the tears blinding me. I feel strong arms squeeze me and a kiss on my cheek. Rocco’s trying to keep me grounded before a panic attack starts, but it’s already too late.

“Hello, Principal Hurst, this is Leo’s partner Rocco Vettore. My guards informed me that another student from her grade is missing, a Mr. Michael Morrison. They’re reasonably sure they left the building together…” he pauses, and his eyes go completely dead. Like a light switch goes out behind them. “I’m extremely disappointed that despite the tuition I pay and the donations you’ve forced me to make to have my security there, this was still able to happen.”

“Mr. Vettore, I understand you’re frustrated, but we can only do so much to control the students—” she starts before Rocco shuts her down.

“Oh no, Miriam. I’m fuckinglivid. You will do whatever my guards ask you and cooperate. When Julia is found, we’ll revisit whether or not you’re qualified to run the academy while my partner’s sisters are enrolled there.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Vettore?—”

“No, this behavior will not be excused,Principal. The Vettore family runs this fucking city, and if you think I can’t get the school’s board of directors to toss you out on your ass and hirea replacement, you’re very mistaken. I’ll expect an update from your people within the next half hour via text to this phone number,” he barks before hanging up.

There’s several moments of prolonged silence. At least I think there is. I can feel myself sliding deeper into my own anxiety. See it piling around me, threatening to bury me alive. Breathing is almost impossible.

“Leo… Leo, you need to snap out of it,now,” he orders me in that cold, emotionless voice.

“Yeah…” I trail off.

I hear Rocco call Giuseppe to instruct him to bring Lucy home as soon as possible. He said it’s a precaution, but something deep in my stomach tells me it’s because something horrible is about to happen. The other shoe has finally dropped.

My new reality crashes around me, the sound of the pieces shattering setting my teeth on edge.

We aren’t safe.

14

ROCCO

Ican see Leo’s anxiety eating him from the inside out. He’s fading away from me so fast I’m scared he’s on the verge of a complete shutdown. When this is all said and done, I’m putting him in counseling.

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